The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience: I Like Rain (Fire/Flying Nun)

Graham Reid | Aug 5, 2015 | 2 min read

JPS Experience: Flex

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Some months ago when Elsewhere added
this Christchurch band's Bleeding Star (1993) to our Essential
Elsewhere albums list, we conceded immediately that others had
nominated their Love Songs ('87) as a better album, or would opt for
their self-titled debut EP ('86) as superior.

Each to their own, but it does say
something about JPSE that so much of their work should be considered
so good and so important.

Certainly they were different from many
other bands on Flying Nun and Dave Mulcahy (guitars), Dave Yetton
(bass), Gary Sullivan (drums) and Jim Laing (guitars) they seemed a
rare implosion of songwriting and playing talent.

That they would all go on to other
creditable projects and groups (among them Superette, Dimmer, Solid
Gold Hell, Stereo Bus, Mutton Birds) after the band's demise in '94 –
a decade after they formed – is a measure of their individual
talents.

But together they really were something
. . . and their small but mostly impressive catalogue (three albums
and some EPs) confirms that.

For too long their albums were hard to get, but no longer because Fire Records in the US (in association with Flying Nun) have just
bundled up everything (including some remixes of Bleeding Star tracks
and rare singles) into one staggering, 54-song collection I Like
Rain; The Story of the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience.

JPS Experience or more simply JPSE – names used after
trouble with the philosopher Sartre's estate which clearly didn't
have a sense of humour – were masters of understatement (Grey
Parade) and space (Fish in the Sea, Let There Be Love) but could also
deliver angular white-funk (Crap Rap), delighful pop (I LIke Rain), intensity (Flex) and widescreen psyche-pop with nods to Manchester (most of
Bleeding Star).

And pieces like Elemental about which Yetton said, "[It was] one of our first experiments with
a looped drumbeat and a strummed bass guitar. It's one of those 'pure' love gets trashed and trodden on by reality (and New
Age workshops) type of songs. With a vague nod to Brian Eno's
line about needles in camel's eyes slipped in for good measure."

Their lyrics were often shot full of
unease and doubt, darkness and menace, and they were worth trying to
decode.

The guitars of Mulcahy and Laing could
intertwine with mesmerising dexterity.

Grant Smithies captures that aspect
perfectly in his Soundtrack book: “Spindly single-note lead runs
that twisted and twined and crossed over each other with the perfect
geometry of a spider's web”.

When they moved to Auckland in '91 they
added Russell Baillie (longtime Herald entertainment editor) to the
line-up for a while. When he left he jokingly told me it was because of
“musical differences. I was musical and they were different”.

They toured widely – US, UK and
Europe – but that was in the closing stages of their career.
Mulcahy quit and was replaced by Matthew Heine (from Solid Gold Hell)
but another tour in the UK took its toll and they called it a day
when they came back.

The planned fourth album never
happened.

Their music changed over the decade
they were together – the simple, spacious songs giving way to more
densely arranged material on Bleeding Star. But there was a
consistency about it which few others at the time – aside from
perhaps the Chills, Straitjacket Fits and the Clean – could muster.

And it's all on I Like Rain which comes as a complete download or as a three LP box set of their albums plus assembled bonus tracks and rarities like the Precious EP.

This is a massive dollop of remastered music from
a "second wave" Flying Nun band which commanded a loyal following but has almost disappeared
into the fog of the distant past.

But the breadth of their vision, and
the fact they wrote many great, memorable songs make this a real
top-shelf collection.

It is everything.

For more on this release on Fire go here. You can pre-order the set on three LPs or three CDs with an oral history, through Flying Out in Auckland here.

Share It

Your Comments

The Riverboat Captain - Aug 11, 2015

Amazing. Fire Records are really turning it on recently, the upcoming new Chills record and now this.

Related Articles

The Auckland duo of recording
engineers/producers and sound mixers Simon Gooding and Brendon Morrow
(York St, television and film work etc) craft the most unfashionable
music. And it's some... > Read more

As I understand it, this quietly
fascinating collection by a Wellington four-piece is a reissue of
songs previously unissued.
To backtrack then: Some of these 10 songs
topped the capital's... > Read more

Here is the official 14 track compilation of artists at the 2010 Womad in Taranaki (March 12-14) and includes the exotic oud-folk-pop of Kamel el Harrachi, alt-world by Calexico, Ethiopian singer... > Read more

Although Thriller was the bigger album (about 60 million sold), Off the Wall (with a paltry 20 million or so) is just a whole lot more danceable fun.
It contained the dancefloor fillers Don't... > Read more